I decided to put my hair in pigtails the other day and take a few pictures. :D I wasn’t really sure if I should post any of them or not but what the heck, right? lol
I also braided them later on but I have no pictures of that, sorry. Next time. :)
Here’s a picture of the ponytail I often wear indoors. I set it pretty high cuz I think it looks pretty that way. <3
The latest pictures of me, myself, and I. (I’m so vain! LOL) As I have been doing the past few times I have also turned it into my new avatar everywhere. Also.. I totally love this shirt! :D
I should be doing this with a lot more regularity than I currently am. but I do my best. Maybe one of these days (I mean years *cough*) I’ll be making this a weekly, or even daily thing. Ah well.. One can dream, right? ;)
About a week ago there was a Transgender information evening thing over at the VUMC in Amsterdam, the hospital that I am still on the waiting list on. It started a little after 6pm with speeches accompanied by slides. I went there with my mom, dad, and my daughter.
We left early to avoid traffic problems, it starting at such an awkward time, so we ate something there and looked around a bit before heading to the hall we were all supposed to meet. I didn’t expect a lot of people to show up but I was mistaken. There were quite a few people there, both transgender and relatives.
There was coffee and tea for everyone and shortly someone came to usher us into an adjacent room which looked very much like a movie theater. Well, at least we were comfy. :) After a brief introduction the first guy started doing his slide ‘n speech thing. He spoke kinda softly so I don’t think my dad missed the bigger part of it, but the guy really only gave a general overview of the process in its entirety, from diagnosis to hormones to surgery.
The second guy was a lot easier to understand, it was an older man, bearded, that made the occasional joke. His main focus seemed to be around the hormones and how it would affect you. He also talked about the danger in acquiring hormones from the internet, and the poor quality thereof even if it is a valid drug.
When he was done we were told there was someone from TransVisie who wanted to say a few things. She was a transgender herself and I assume talked about how TransVisie is there to help both transgers and their relatives deal with issues or just find other people to talk to, beyond the more official places to go to. I say assume because she was so nervous about talking in front of people it was very hard to hear her and between every sentence there was this very awkward silence. It was a very sad display, she may have needed to practice this first.
Then it was breaktime and Lynda and I took this time to go back to the restaurant and find us something to drink besides tea. We decided on Dr Pepper and bought some chocolate too.
When it was time to go back there was one more person going to talk, which was a surgeon who, naturally, talked about the surgical procedures and everything surrounding that. They mentioned having been to Thailand recently and altering their technique somewhat. It was asked by someone if they also saw Dr. Suporn, one of the most well-known surgeons in this field but they said they haven’t been to his practice yet.
While I already knew most of the topics talked about it was still nice to hear it from the actual official source and it was of course also nice that both my parents now have a better idea and understanding of what to expect
Posted in: My Transition 
Tags: Amsterdam, family, hormones, hospital, information, MtF, surgery, transgenderYesterday I went to a birthday party and I had a lot of fun.
A year ago those words would’ve never escaped my lips.
As I go through all these changes I am also reinventing myself; it’s not just all appearance, it’s also my personality, ..everything. I am slowly changing my entire life, step by step. This change in particular is a big one for me though, because the old me never went anywhere or did anything. Now, however, I find myself wanting yo do these things. Before, I wouldn’t be caught dead at a birthday party. Now, I am excited about going! :D
I am noticeably happier and a lot more comfortable with myself, and it shows. Which I think is making acceptance a lot easier for everyone else too.
So they are very positive changes and I am excited about it. Besides, I’m tired of being home all day every day. :P
Just a small update for now, I gotta go do some meddling with the website’s code. :P
My eldest uncle’s 70th birthday was last week but as he has been in and out of the hospital for a long time it wasn’t really clear if he was going to be home for that to be able to celebrate it. As time reached closer to his birthday it was apparent that he wasn’t able to come home so his daughter mailed a lot of family and friends to see if they could possibly go to the hospital on that day to still have some sort of party for him.
She quickly found out she got more than she anticipated though, after a day or two there were already about 20 people on ‘the list’ wanting to go. :D She mailed everyone again, thanking them for the huge response and added that it might be nice to go to a nearby restaurant afterward to celebrate her mom’s 60th birthday as well, as those 2 birthdays are close together. That way they’d both have a decent birthday party. :)
This was all hush-hush though, no one was to let either of them know this was planned. It was all gonna be a big surprise! Luckily that worked out as planned and when the day arrived there were over 40 people there! Quite a lot more than she expected when she first wrote that email.
We had to be there around 6:30pm and meet up in the big hal of the polyclinic located in the hospital. When we arrived there were already a lot of people. There were so many people that even the big huge table there wasn’t enough to seat everyone. We had to add a few tables. :P
I ate cake and met a lot of family for the first time since I became Julie. I was a bit nervous about that. It took me forever to decide what to wear! I must’ve tried like a dozen shirts before I finally settled for my white army girl t shirt that I love. Thing is that I didn’t wanna overdo the girl part for what is a first time meeting for a lot of them. (so no miniskirts and fishnet stockings, lol!) What was probably even more fun is that I got to kiss everyone now! :D Woot! I wasn’t sure if everyone was gonna be ok with that but I was pleasantly surprised. :)
Naturally some people are still a little confused by it all but I’m sure that most of them realized by now that this is hardly a ‘phase’ I’m going through. I’ve been full-time for about 9 months now and I don’t go around looking like a construction worker in drag either. I do my best to look good and I am noticeably a lot happier now than I’ve ever been before. That is certainly one of the most important things, right? :)
Anyway, we stuck around at the hospital for my uncle’s birthday for a while, he was very touched by it all; that so many people showed up just for him. He doesn’t always realize how special he is to the family but he is. When my grandmother died he became the oldest member of the family, the one everyone looked at.
At like 8:30 we were supposed to head over to the restaurant, a Chinese/Japanese wok restaurant of all things. I’ve never really wokked in my life so that was new to me. This is where my aunt’s birthday was gonna be celebrated, before this point she still had no idea, she thought she was gonna go home with her immediate family and have dinner there. So this was a big surprise for her! :D
It was set up so we’d all pay a fixed amount and then it would simply be all-inclusive. We could eat and drink ’til we dropped or until the kitchen closes, lol. They had a lot of stuff, even a sushi bar! I didn’t try that though, I don’t do very well with raw meats, especially fish. :P I did try a few new things I had never eaten before, I even ate some squid! :D I had to do something to make Sha proud cuz she couldn’t be there. It was very chewy and lacking of flavour to be honest. :P I also had some Chinese bami and a variety of other meats and veggies. It was all very good. :)
Both surprise parties were a huge success and everyone had a lot of fun. :) Here’s a few pics of me there so I finally fulfill my promise of adding more pictures. :P
Well, it took many, many months of waiting but I finally got to go to the VUMC in Amsterdam today for my intake meeting thing. I think I applied in like, July 2008 for this.
See, over here in the Netherlands they are very strict when it comes to diagnosis and treatment of people who have gender dysphoria. Rightfully so of course, there are many people who claim or think they have gender dysphoria but it’s not uncommon that those feelings are misplaced or stemming from other issues. They may even just be a homosexual whose only way of dealing with it is portraying themselves as feminine (I’m attracted to men, so I must be a girl, right?). Of course I’m generalizing it a bit there, but that’s basically what they try to evaluate after your intake: How likely is the chance you do in fact have gender dysphoria?
Right now the waiting list has become so long they did early preliminary intakes. So essentially the waiting list still isn’t over. They did this to predetermine who should be on the waiting list at all; eliminating the odd cases I mentioned above. In effect shortening the waiting list for everyone else waiting for the diagnostic phase. This process will happen next month when the VUMC ‘gender team’ has their meeting and starts deciding who stays and who doesn’t.
After that I will still have to wait another 3 to 6 months before I can even start the diagnostic phase, which in itself will take a minimum of 6 months. So the earliest I can start my hormone treatment will be about a year from now. So that’s kind of a bummer but at least progress is being made. Besides, I have no doubts about me going successfully going through the diagnostic phase and such. All I got to do is wait and it will happen, I believe truly in this fact.
So today was an important day, that I was extremely nervous about, but it all went down without a hitch and I could further reaffirm that I really don’t have anything to worry about. I just need to be patient is all.
tl;dr version: Intake done, more months of waiting to be done, I will succeed.
They say that the way the general society deals with transgendered people is about a decade or two behind when compared to the gay community. The latter is largely accepted, especially out here in the Netherlands. They can even get a fully recognized marriage now and adopt kids. Parents no longer hide it or fear getting barred from their favorite establishment or community for having a gay son or daughter. When it comes to transgendered people however, we’re often still not taken seriously, and more often than I’d like to recount, beaten to a bloody pulp.
I’ve been talking to other T-girls for a while now and asking how they and their family and friends are dealing with it. There’s the classic parents who simply deny it and utterly refuse to call them by their new name (even after many years), and there’s the ones that have been cast out of their own homes; even teenagers have been forced to live in the streets. Parents have shunned their own children over this. Siblings have made death threats toward their own kin.
It boggles the mind that we still do these things in this day and age. In our society that we like to view as liberal we still punish and kill those who are too different than the rest. There is just no way to please everyone and some people will simply never ever ‘get it’. In the end it is of course their problem and not ours but doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. Especially when it comes from your own family and friends.
Compared to most of these people I have been pretty lucky. I did not lose my entire family and all my friends are still talking to me. Most of my friends have been around and it’s not really something ‘new’ to them. They also know they can ask me anything and I am always very open about it all.
Still, it can be really hard at times to realize that there are people out there that hate you simply for existing. I am who I am, I cannot change that no matter how much they pray to their God to smite me or how hard they’ll punch me in the face. I am who I am, and I am proud of who I am.
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” – Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, 1594
Yes, it would smell the same no matter what we call it, though I personally don’t think calling a rose a “cactus” would be appropriate. Giving people and objects names is how we identify things. I’m sure that you agree that without names everyday conversation would start getting very confusing. Though sometimes we still have a nasty habit of doing it. “Did you see that thing with the thing when it went all… you know? With the stuff?” ;)
Now, when that same rose changes, so does its name. There are many different kinds of roses, as there are many different kinds of people. Even though they are all equal we change their name so we can more properly identify who (or what, in the event of a conversation about roses) we are talking about.
Right now I am in transition, I am changing who I am to the very deep rooted core of my identity. Though my genetics will not change, I will grow and flourish into a new form of myself; a new person. As this change progresses my old name of how I used to be identified should apply less and less to who I am becoming. In the end it would even be more natural to change names as to properly identify me. Eventually there will be people who will only know me from that new identity onward.
So, I will still be a rose, but there’s a more clarifying addition to it. It won’t be “cactus rose”, but something more suiting and proper. Just as you wouldn’t call your mother “Bob” or your father “Susan”, nor should you me.
I want to add to this story that I have decided, after very long deliberation, to hyphenate my last name. Though previously I chose to change it to my wife’s there is something to be said for legacy and identity. If my last name is akin to my “rose”, then I should keep it rather than change it completely. So while there will be an addition to it to show I am a different kind of rose, I am still a rose.
So the holidays are finally over, schools have started again and everything is slowly returning to normal again. Well… relatively speaking that is, I’m sure you all know that with me everything is hardly ever “normal”. ;)
For X-Mas we (Sha, Lynda, Mom, Dad, Werner, Jan, and myself) spent the day at my moms as has been the custom for years and years. I had an idea of what I wanted to wear I just had to find a good match. I went for a pretty black shirt with an open white top with collar on top of it along with my mid-sized black skirt and black open toed high heels. I had never worn my skirt outside of the house yet so it was a new experience for the family, but honestly, I think I looked good. :P I was dressed for the occasion anyway. :)
As is tradition for us with X-Mas, we went ‘gourmetting’ (hot steel plate grill type thing). Meaning lots and lots of meat to eat. It’s always a lot of fun and tasty too. :d We had steak, burgers, chicken fillet, pork for the pork eaters and many other foods I can’t completely remember right now. :) It took us many hours to finish it all.
Afterward, once the cleaning was done, we played a game of Trivial Pursuit. One of my favorite party games by far. We decided to play in teams; Mom with Jan, Dad with Lynda, and me with Sha. Werner was acting as judge if it came to dubious answers.
Dad’s too smart and it didn’t take long before he and Lynda won their first wedge. Question after question was answered correctly and though Sha and I were slowly gaining on them they eventually won the game.
The 31st of December rolled by, which also happens to be Lynda’s birthday. She turned 15 that day, growing up so fast. Unfortunately, being on a big holiday means it’s hard to get friends over to come to your party. Even the buses stop going after a while.
The sad part though, was that the two friends she was counting on to be there, couldn’t make it. One unexpectedly had his father drop in so they all naturally decided to spend time together as a family. The other one though we’re not so sure about what happened there. Lynda’s kinda mad at her right now, and I can’t blame her really. At least some of the family came over and she got lots of presents too. :)
Every year on this day one of my cousins does this open house thing where all of the family and relatives can just walk in. There’s food, soup, drinks for everyone. I was on the fence for a while about going though I really wanted to. I just get nervous sometimes about big social events with lots of people. Even though I had to persuade Sha and promise her it’d only be for “10 minutes” or so I knew that was unlikely to happen when ti comes to my family.
In the end we stayed for a few hours and we all had a good time. Sha was having fun meeting more family members she had never, or rarely, seen before. Still trying to match names with faces. :) My eldest uncle was there too and it was nice to see him. Fate has not been kind to him with more hospital trips than he’d care to count and a few weeks ago it wasn’t sure whether or not he was even going to be here for the holidays. Luckily he was dismissed from the hospital early.
We left early enough to watch some TV and get ready for fireworks. We had a small box of fountains ‘n stuff. It was neat. :) We watched various live concerts after the fireworks. We watched Céline Dion, Gerard Joling’s “Stout & Nieuw”, The Beyoncé Experience, which I totally need to get on DVD. It was awesome! She even did a few things from her Destiny’s Child days. It definitely was an experience.
Few days later mom called me. Apparently there was some confusion about me showing up at my cousin’s place. There were a bunch of people that after we left asked who that girl was and if she was family. :D That’s pretty awesome to hear. It means I’m doing things right. :)
:makes victory sign:
On that same topic, my mom is using my new name more and more. Not all the time yet, but at least she’s trying and I truly appreciate that. I think she is coming to terms to the fact that despite the changes I am still her child. No matter the gender. :)
Anyhoo, I will try and make some new pictures for you all soon. I got some new shoes and clothes ‘n stuff I wanna show off too. :)
Posted in: Clothing, Make Up, & Jewelry, Miscellaneous, My Transition Tags: christmas, family, holidays, new year's eve, X-MasLast night I dreamt I was getting married. We were doing all kinds of things to get me ready for the big day. Hair, nails, jewelry, etc. Then we drove off to one of my family member’s place to get me into my dress and I guess do the wedding there. I know I was supposed to walk down the stairs with my pretty white dress on, because I saw it. Weird huh? No clue who I was gonna marry though. :P
Merry XMAS everyone! :)